Comment:
Palin's loyalty cannot be questioned. She would not be anybody if it were not for McCain. I believe that she thinks she owes him and that she is a loyal and honorable person. However, I also believe that after the election, McCain will dump her like an old shoe. McCain will do anything and say anything to keep his own political career.
Going Rogue Tour… Over 58,000 books signed. Nearly 5 complete days of signing books. 33 Cities & 25 States. Over 19,000 total miles traveled by plane and bus. Five military bases visited.
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The Alaska governor spoke in taped interviews on ABC, NBC and CNN broadcast Tuesday morning.
She told CNN that "all options are on the table" for her future.
But told ABC's "Good Morning America" that she recognizes she might not have political staying power after her surprise resignation Friday, which came just as she had been expected to elevate her national profile ahead of a possible 2012 GOP presidential run.
"I said before ... 'You know, politically speaking, if I die, I die. So be it,'" she said.
Speaking in fishing waders from the town of Dillingham, Palin said her administration has been paralyzed by fending off frivolous lawsuits.
"I'm not going to take the comfortable path. I'm going to take the right path for the state," she said of her resignation, which she characterized as a matter of progressing in an unconventional way.
"That caught people off guard. ... It's out of the box and unconventional. That's what we are as Alaskans and certainly how I am as a public servant."
Palin said she doesn't think she needs a title to affect "positive change," but added that she can't see herself being totally out of public service.
Palin is returning to the public eye four days after her bombshell announcement, albeit in a place far removed from the glare of the national media: in a remote fishing village 30 miles north of the Arctic Circle.
Palin was scheduled to appear in Kotzebue to sign a bill designed to bring public safety officers to small towns. Kotzebue, a town of about 3,000 people, is 550 miles northwest of Anchorage and lies on a spit of sand at the end of a peninsula.
There has been speculation that she has some legal issue that is not yet known to the public. But her lawyer told The Associated Press on Monday that she has no legal problems whatsoever, and simply is tired of the hostile political climate, legal bills and other distractions.
"She is leaving now because I think she believes that she has become the issue, rightly or wrongly, with all these ethics complaints and with the issues involving the Legislature, the combativeness they've been demonstrating toward her since she returned from the campaign," Thomas Van Flein said.
"I think she believes it's in the best interest of the state to progress forward, for her to move on to other issues."
Palin has become a lightning rod for partisan politics in Alaska since her return from the 2008 presidential campaign after John McCain selected her as his running mate for the GOP ticket. She has racked up an estimated $500,000 in legal bills defending the flurry of ethics complaints, including one filed Monday that alleges she is violating ethics law by taking per diem payments when she stays in her Wasilla home instead of the governor's mansion in Juneau.
In addition, her relationship with Democrats in the state Senate — once among her staunchest allies — deteriorated in the last session.
At the state Capitol in Juneau, the "Time to Make a Difference" clock that counted the time left in Palin's term was taken down from the wall outside her office. And people from around the country called up her office to inquire about the situation, as did a few cruise ship tourists who made the trek to the Capitol.
The young woman at the desk outside Palin's office was busy answering phones.
"Yes, she is getting swamped with e-mails," the woman tells one caller. "Yes, they do get forwarded to the appropriate person."
"Unfortunately, we are having a back load of e-mails so it will take some to get a response," she tells another.
Where is she? Why is she stepping down? When is her last day? Why so soon?
The tour guide tried to politely answer the questions for the tourists when she could, but for the most part had no answers.
Some of the visitors left Palin messages in a guest log.
"Sarah — Please Stay!" one person wrote.
Kathy Waldo-Gilbert, a registered Democrat from Iowa who was on her honeymoon in Alaska, said she was especially disappointed because she believes that Palin's early departure from the governor's job will make it harder for other women who want to be taken seriously in high-profile positions. Waldo-Gilbert voted Republican for the first time in last year's presidential election.
"When things get hard, you stick around," she said.
Erika Fagerstrom, executive residential manager at the governor's mansion, said Palin and her family will be missed. Even though Palin lived most of the time at her home in Wasilla, she spent "quite a bit" of time at the stately columned mansion near the capitol building, she said.
"We are sad to see her go. They are a great family," she said.
Palin will be succeeded by Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, who has announced he will seek to retain the office in the 2010 election.
State Rep. John Harris, a former House speaker and Republican from Valdez, announced Monday that he's preparing to file paperwork with state election officials in a bid for governor.
© 2009 Associated Press - Tuesday, July 7, 2009 8:50 AM
Posted: Daily Thought Pad
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Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin used her Twitter page Sunday to fire back at critics seizing on her decision to abruptly resign from office this month and to rebut speculation of an FBI investigation.
Shortly after lawmakers, pundits and political strategists took to the Sunday morning television talk shows to call her decision to step down a political mistake, Mrs. Palin posted several Tweets on the social-networking Web site aimed at reassuring supporters that she had made the correct decision.
"Critics are spinning, so hang in there as they feed false info on the right decision made as I enter last yr in office to not run again," wrote Mrs. Palin, who has been considered a likely Republican presidential candidate in 2012.
A few hours later, in an attempt to debunk speculation that her pending resignation was linked to a rumored FBI investigation, she posted a link on her Twitter page to a Los Angeles Times article that quoted an agency official saying that there was "absolutely no truth" that the FBI was investigating the governor.
Mrs. Palin also earlier in the day posted a link to a letter from her attorney, Thomas Van Flein, which pushed back at allegations, saying that Mrs. Palin's resignation had nothing to do with the rumored criminal investigation that she illegally intervened in the construction of a sports complex in Wasilla, the Alaska town where she formerly served as mayor.
But many political figures say that Mrs. Palin's abrupt resignation will haunt her if she decides to run for president.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a potential GOP rival of Mrs. Palin in 2012, on Sunday called her decision to step down from office a "risky strategy" politically.
"Nobody knows whether it's going to pay off or not," he said on "Fox News Sunday." "And even if she did get out primarily because of a feeling of being chased, that's not going to stop if she continues in politics."
Mr. Huckabee, who ran for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination before withdrawing from the race several months before the November election, said Mrs. Palin's hastily called news conference on Friday to announce her resignation has raised more questions than it answered.
"My political mentor, Ed Rollins, the other day on his radio show brought that up - that you don't call a press conference that creates questions. You call one to resolve them," the former governor said.
Mrs. Palin, the Republicans' 2008 vice presidential nominee, said on Friday that her decision to step down from office July 26 was based in part on her family's desire for her to quit.
But Mr. Huckabee, Arkansas governor from 1996 to 2007, said she was making a serious political mistake if she was resigning to shield herself and her family from media scrutiny.
"If that had been the case for me, I'd have quit about my first month [as governor] because I was a Republican governor in a state where 89 percent of my Legislature were Democrats," he said.
Karl Rove, a former senior adviser to President George W. Bush, also said on Sunday that he was "perplexed" by Mrs. Palin's actions.
"If she wanted to escape the ethics investigations and save the taxpayers money, she's now done that, but it sort of sent a signal that if you do this kind of thing to a sitting governor like her, you can drive her out of office," Mr. Rove said on "Fox News Sunday."
Mr. Rove said that Mrs. Palin's decision has significantly hurt her chances of winning the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.
"When you're a sitting governor, you have the tactical advantage - if you're thinking about running for president - of turning down a lot of things with an excuse that people will accept: 'I've got a job to do as governor,' " he said. "She's now removed that."
Mrs. Palin, during her Friday press conference, bemoaned the amount of time and money she had to devote to personal legal battles and overcoming negative press coverage.
"I cannot stand here as your governor and allow the millions of dollars and all that time to go to waste, just so I can hold the title of governor," she said, referring to the impact of multiple ethics complaints against her. All but two of the 15 ethics complaints filed against Mrs. Palin have been dismissed with no findings of wrongdoing; the remaining two are pending.
Alaska Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, in line to become governor when Mrs. Palin steps down, said she has spoken with him about the toll the ethics investigations have taken on her. He said the legal bills for fighting the complaints already have cost state taxpayers about $2 million.
"That was just over the top, and I think she used the word 'insane' ... in her remarks," he said.
Monday, July 6, 2009 9:07 AM
By: Sean Lengell,
Steele: Palin Will Be Helpful in ‘09 Governor’s Races
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said this week that he plans to ask Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for her help in the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, according to a report by ABC News.
The GOP gubernatorial candidates are Bob McDonnell in Virginia and Chris Christie in New Jersey.
“I plan on talking to Gov. Palin very soon,” Steele said. “She is an important and galvanizing voice in the Republican Party. I believe she will be very helpful to the party this year as we wage critical campaigns in Virginia and New Jersey.
“I am certain this has been a difficult decision for her to step down as Alaska’s governor. She has been a good governor for her state and I wish her and the Palin family the best during this transition,” Steele concluded.
Palin’s abrupt resignation as Alaska’s governor still has her party’s leaders scratching their heads.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., issued a statement saying he had “the greatest respect and affection” for his former running mate, and was hopeful that “she will continue to play an important leadership role in the Republican Party,” according to USA Today.
Meanwhile, Karl Rove, former political guru for President George W. Bush, told Fox News over the weekend that he and other GOP strategists are “perplexed” by Palin’s bombshell.
Former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee referred to the Palin resignation as “risky.”
Palin officially steps down July 26. She will be replaced by Alaska’s lieutenant governor, Sean Parnell, a Republican.
By: Dave Eberhart - 2009 Newsmax
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s attorney, Thomas Van Flein, issued a four-page warning to mainstream news organizations over the weekend that he will sue on behalf of his client if “defamatory material” relating to her or her family finds its way from Internet blogs to print.
In the statement released Saturday, Van Flein noted there will be severe consequences to those organizations that print stories accusing the governor of embezzling funds in the construction of a sports arena in Wasilla, Alaska. The FBI today released a statement saying Palin is not under investigation, Politico reports.
“We are not investigating her," FBI spokesman Eric Gonzalez said Sunday. "Normally we don't confirm or deny those kinds of allegations out there, but by not doing so it just casts her in a very bad light. There is just no truth to those rumors out there in the blogosphere."
Palin's personal spokeswoman, Meg Stapleton, sent the statement from Van Flein attacking "false and defamatory allegations that the 'real' reasons for Governor Palin's resignation stem from an alleged criminal investigation pertaining to the construction of the Wasilla Sports Complex,” the Anchorage Daily News reports.
Radio talk show host and blogger Shannyn Moore, who Van Flein called out personally for defaming Palin, followed that up by holding a press conference of her own in Anchorage yesterday to respond to Palin’s attorney’s claims.
Moore went on national television Friday, the day Palin said she would resign, and mentioned the rumor to MSNBC's David Shuster.
"There is a scandal rumor here that there is a criminal investigation into some activities and that's been rumored for about, I don't know, probably six weeks or two months," Moore told Shuster, noting Palin appeared nervous as she announced her resignation.
“I think she [Palin] was actually doing damage control for news that's coming up later," Moore said in explaining Palin’s abrupt resignation after serving just two-and-a-half years of a four-year term in office.
"I can say definitively I am aware of no criminal investigation whatsoever involving Sarah Palin. Zero," Van Flein said.
"The Palins used a combination of personal savings, equity from the sale of their private home, and conventional bank financing to build the house, like millions of American families," Van Flein wrote in reference to the Lake Lucille family home Palin’s husband Todd built as general contractor.
Van Fleini said Todd "is no stranger to construction. We will be exploring legal options this week to address such defamation."
In response to the defamation allegation, Moore said: "I haven't defamed the governor; I reported on speculation and rumor in Alaska. It's not my rumor; it's been out there for 10 months and the First Amendment protects me. Even if I didn't say it's 'rumors and speculation,' I'm still protected –– I would just lose credibility, which I'm not willing to do."
Moore called Palin "a coward and a bully" and said she only pointed out that rumors existed about Palin’s finances but never claimed them to be fact.
"What kind of politician attacks an ordinary American on the Fourth of July for speaking her mind?” Moore said. “What's wrong with her? The first amendment was designed to protect people like me from people like her. Our American revolution got rid of kings. And it got rid of queens, as well. Am I annoyed? You betcha. Shannyn Moore will not be muzzled.”
And although we are hearing a lot of negative speculation about Palin’s decision to resign the governorship Limbaugh, Huckabee and Coulter say is was a gutsy move and could work for her!!!
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The reaction to Sarah Palin’s decision to resign as governor of Alaska has been one of both criticism and shock. Democratic reaction has been to attack her further and Republican reaction is just befuddlement. The media has been covering this story all weekend knocking Mark Sanford and Michael Jackson off the stage, thank God. Sanford cheated on his wife and should resign, we know. Michael Jackson is still dead, we loved his music, but it is time to move on. The coverage the past few days of Governor Palin has hardly been fair. Fox News has run specials on her, treating her like the second coming of Christ, and every other network is whacking at her like a piñata. They are reporting she is under investigation for fraud or embezzlement or some other cooked up charge. To set that record straight, no she is not under investigation. The FBI confirmed it, go look it up. It is wishful thinking on the part of some leftist extremists.
I am not sure why Sarah Palin resigned. I honestly believe that she felt constrained in Alaska, got sick of how both she and her family were portrayed in the press, and that she wants to run for president. By resigning, she is no longer constrained, should be able to get peace and quiet from those bogus ethics complaints, and if she wants to run for president she can. Resigning, though, does not look that good when seeking higher office. That is ammo for the media, Democrats, and potential Republican opponents. It is the most unconventional move for a politician in years, and will result in complete success or utter failure. Palin could spend the next few years fixing her image, making money, writing a book, giving speeches, brush up on the issues, and emerge as a good looking candidate.
I don’t know how many people that are reading this are on Twitter, but one of the people I follow is Glenn Beck. He wrote last night in three separate tweets:
1) Glenn Beck: “Many write: Palin is done. U don't understand EVERYTHING is about to change. What you thought you knew, could trust or depend on is shifting.”
2) Glenn Beck: “2012: Obama DEM. Romney GOP. Palin Common Sense/Real People Party. Dems eventually implode. GOP Has come 2 Jesus moment or Palin pivots USA.”
3) Glenn Beck: “reading Palin’s speech again. SHE is going to be a force. GOP-be afraid. Very Afraid. There will be only one standing in the end. I'll bet on her.”
I don’t know what to make of this. Could Glenn Beck have some knowledge we do not have or is it just foresight? According to him, Palin will either be the last one in the Republican Party left to run for President or will run as a third party and find a path to victory.
Whatever may be, this is interesting coming from one of the top conservatives on television. It could be that Sarah Palin is realizing the country is changing and in need of leadership. She may be trying to fill a void and could emerge successful, contrary to what many people think. We just don’t know. I can promise you all one thing. This, not matter how it unfolds, will make for some good tv and good discussions with people you know.
By Patrick McMahon - Jacksonville Independent Examiner
Posted: Daily Thought Pad
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During this week leading up to America’s 233rd Birthday Weekend, two Republican candidates appear to have dropped their gauntlets into the ring… however indirectly. The 2012 Race has begun~
Publicly Mitt Romney has been saying he’s not considering another presidential campaign, even as recently as last Sunday during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the 
Press.” But many of his loyal followers expect one. Mitt did admit that he would consider using some of his own money to partially fund his campaign again, if he had to, should he decided to enter the race. In the opinion of many, Mitt may be the right man for the race and the job in 2012 with his strong economic background and successes as Governor of Massachusetts and savior ot the Salt Lake Olympics.
Then later this week Romney said in a Fox News interview that he ‘had the fire to run for president again’ he just had to see if the people would be warmed by it. And although he has not officially opened his campaign his Team and followers are ready and waiting for the announcement. Many of Mitt Romney's loyalists have expected another presidential bid and have remained at the ready for 2012, since the day Obama was elected.
Then today Sarah Palin shocked everyone by announcing that she was not running for a 2nd term as Governor of Alaska and rather than staying on as a lame duck and finishing her term, she was
Of course the immediate speculation after the surprise Palin announcement has been that Governor Palin has quit to focus on a bid for the 2012 Republican nomination for president. Others have speculated that she might have decided to put her political career on hold to spend some time with her family or even to turn her back on politics altogether. Still others are speculating that Palin will be starting a think tank, expanding Sarah Pac, or working directly with the GOP to further her beliefs and improve her resume for a run in the future... after 2012.
There are of course many others who will toss their hats into the ring as the race gets closer and as Obama and his policies continue to drop in popularity.
In recent polls Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney occupy the top spots for possible 2012 GOP candidates… other possibles include Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich, Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee, and who knows who else; even Jeb Bush has been mentioned. But we should remember, whoever thought of Barack Obama as a presidential candidate for 2008 back in July of 2005, let alone of Sarah Palin for VP?
As for the field of GOP candidates, it narrowed again just last week. News of Senator John Ensign's affair broke and Governor Sanford admitted to an affair with a woman in Argentina, taking them both out of the race.
The GOP troubles seem to have left two prominent 2012 prospects, for now, 2008 presidential hopeful and former Governor Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, unscathed, however it is early. And if anyone can make an unconventional comeback, against the conventional rules and odds, it would be Sarah Palin. There had already been speculation of the possibility of an eventual Romney-Palin ticket. Whatever the future holds for the GOP… it will be interesting!
Sarah ended her announcement about her "personal climate change", as she put it, by saying that on her parent's refrigerator is a magnet on which it says:
Don't explain...
Your Friends Don't Need It!
And Your Enemies Won't Believe It Anyway~
That is probably the exact place that Sarah Palin now finds herself in, again, but she chose to explain anyway for her loyal supporters, the people of Alaska and the people of America.
By Marion Algier/Ask Marion
Posted: Daily Thought Pad
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A great ticket would be Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin and then Sarah run in the number one spot after that!!
